DARPA Inventions That Should Be In Games

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Robo-bees, organic chembots, hummingbird NAVs and more.

By Dan Griliopoulos

It's hard for a war-game developer. You make a AAA shooting game, with all new twists and tweaks, and the players love it; and then you have to do it again next year. And again. And again. By the third iteration of the second spin-off series of the main series, you've run out of distinctive locations and interesting enemies, and all the terrorists have started looking the same. That's when you're tempted – sorely tempted – by future warfare.

It's hard to come up with new stuff, though; you can't just make it up, as the hardcore military types won't play it, and you can't go too far into the future for the same reason. You want what's next, what hasn't already been mined by all the competing wargame developers.

Here, then, is the next generation of military hardware currently under development at DARPA – the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the US' hotbed of futuristic war toys. How likely is it that we'll be seeing any of it on a battlefield anytime soon – or in a game?

Spies - Chembots and NAVs

Chembots are soft and flexible organic robots that can deform their shape. They use this flexibility to infiltrate small spaces, for covert ground access to "denied areas" for example. The plan is for it to dismantle and rebuild itself to deliver a specific 'payload' into a secure environment. In the air, meanwhile, the tiny NAV (Nano Air Vehicle) seems to be modelled after a hummingbird, and performs the same function in the air as Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter's UAV - except it weights less than 20 grams and is only 15 cm long. These, combined with the frankly scary swarm robot technology (where hundreds of smaller robots behave like one organism), could make for some awesome gaming scenarios.

Healing - FRAMR & Fracture Putty

The Feedback Regulated Automatic Molecular Release system is a huge advance on the old World War II motivational tactic of "pump them full of amphetamines and give them guns". This self-regulating drug delivery system is intended to prevent overdoses by measuring a soldier's toxicity levels, meaning you can give them exactly the maximum amount of painkillers their body can take. Combined with the miracle Fracture Putty, which will sets like rock around a broken limb, the medical health of our future soldiers is assured.

Remote-control insects

The HI-MEMS program takes a range of insects and alters their behavioural patterns by inserting circuitry. Already, olfactory training of bees has been used to locate mines and weapons of mass destruction; now, this next step into controlled cyborg insects is already well underway, with control systems implanted into insects' metamorphic forms used to remote-control the adult insect. The next step is to implant more sensors and extract power from the insect to power more devices. If troublesome warlords start dying in droves from insect bites, you know who blame.

Dogs of war - Realnose and BigDog

Those killer dogs from Call of Duty are so last year. Well, in terms of sniffing out enemies anyway. As the Defense Sciences Office recognises that current chemical sensors are extremely inaccurate and insensitive relative to a dog's nose, they've decided to replicate the canine nose with modern science using actual olfactory receptors. This may well mean that our future soldiers are going to be carrying around real dogs' noses inside little machines to sniff out explosives, poison gases and so on. Notably, they're also likely to be accompanied by BigDog; a quadrapedal pack robot that looks like Master Chief and Dog from Half-Life 2 had a baby, designed to carry heavy equipment long distances in rough terrain.

Frickin' Lasers

DARPA wouldn't be taken seriously if it wasn't making a hundred different types of laser. This is the speciality of the Microsystems Technology Office. From the 100kW Excalibur light-weight anti-ground and -air laser to the quantum cascade infrared EMIL ray to the ominously-named gamma ray Ultrabeam, they all sound terrifying; thankfully, none of these lasers are being used in the field yet. There's no mention of mutated sea bass with lasers on their heads, sadly; that must be a different department.

Spider-Soldiers

Inspired by Geckos, the Z-man apparatus will use biologically-inspired climbing aids to enable a normal soldier carrying a full combat load to scale a vertical surface, without the aid of climbing materials, ropes or ladders. These systems will instead use van der Waals forces or millions of tiny hooks, like spiders or geckos, to climb manmade structures.

RealWorld

The RealWorld software from the Information Innovation Office (I2O) is carried on a laptop. When the soldier accesses it, it allows him to rehearse and test missions and tactics in the relevant geo-specific location with realistic physics. This will allow warfighters to rapidly iterate mission plans on the fly, by themselves, in small groups or in a large unit - across all relevant platforms - vehicles, helicopters, infantry or fast moving troops. In practice, this means soldiers can work out a combined arms assault on the fly, and test it out in a sim before they attack.

Accelerated Learning & Education Dominance

These are two separate programs to improve learning techniques in the military. The Education Dominance program features an automated Digital Tutor that teaches military personnel in such a way that they understand everything from the basics up, rather learning by rote. However, the Accelerated Learning program is much more Deus Ex, using non-invasive neuroscience-based strategies to dramatically accelerate the learning process. Note that "non-invasive" might still mean giant magnetic 'hammers' disabling bits of your brain.

Automatically detecting and engaging targets: CROSSHAIRS

Again hitting first with the ludicrous acronym, CROSSHAIRS is a jeep-mounted automatic killing machine. It "detects, locates and engages shooters" as well as providing mobile countermeasures to a range of threats, from bullets and RPGS to mortars and anti-tank guided missiles. Notably, some of its sensors are designed to gather "forensic and judicial evidence", presumably because the US military is a bit worried about the civilian casualties it's been inflicting recently. I mean, have you seen the opening of Team America?

Making FPSes redundant: One-Shot

A system developed by the Adaptive Execution Office, One-shot is a weapon add-on designed to make it so that your first shot never misses - a bit like being Hawkeye. It features automated range-tracking and wind-checking, and works in any conditions - nighttime, sandstorms, rain and so forth. Not likely to be much use in an FPS (if it works too well, the game's not fun, if it only works for the first shot, that's not much good either) but could feature in tactical combat games.

There's so much amazing tech being developed by DARPA, we had to leave a lot out. Pop over to www.darpa.mil for a look at all those US tax dollars going on programs with amazing acronyms like Brioche, BLADE, CRASH, ASSIST, ADAMS, CINDER, REMIND, PREVENT and the amazing BOSS (Brood of Spectrum Supremacy) and OBTW (Oh, By The Way).